05/17/19

Players

#12 Adrian Nieto, C

Active

Biography:Adrian Nieto, born in Havana, Cuba and raised in Florida, comes to the T-Bones following a 2017 season where he played 68 games between AA Pensacola and AAA Louisville in the Cincinnati Reds organization. In 41 games at AA, he hit three home runs and drove in 15 runs, hitting at a .250 clip. At AAA Louisville, Nieto played in 27 games and batted .204 with six RBIs. Nieto was selected in the fifth round of the 2008 Major League Draft out of American Heritage High School in Plantation, Florida by the Washington Nationals. He would see limited action following the draft, playing in eight games going 5-for-23 with the Gulf Coast Rookie League Nationals. In 2009 in 42 games in the GCL, Nieto hit .228 with 17 RBIs and then would make the jump to low A full season Hagerstown in the South Atlantic League in 2010. With the Suns he hit .195 with two homers and 14 RBIs.
In 2011 Nieto made three stops in the Washington system, starting the season at short season Auburn in the New York-Penn League where played in 30 games, hitting .302 with four home runs and 22 RBIs. He would see action in two games that July in the high A Carolina League with Potomac, going 1-for-5 and then finishing the season at Hagerstown where he hit .255 in 27 games with three home runs and 12 RBIs.
Nieto returned to the South Atlantic League in 2012 and hit .257 in 70 games with Hagerstown, including six long balls and 39 RBIs. In a short rehab stint, he played in eight GCL games during July of the 2012 season. His final season with the Nationals organization, Nieto played in a career high 110 games at high A Carolina with Potomac, hitting .285 with a career high 11 home runs and another career high 53 RBIs. He would throw out 33% of runners behind the plate defensively during the season. Nieto added another 13 games in the Arizona Fall League to his resume in 2013, hitting .271 (13-for-48) with six RBIs.
The Chicago White Sox selected Nieto in the 2013 Rule 5 draft as the third pick overall, and he would spend the entire 2014 season with the big club, serving as the backup to Tyler Flowers. For the season, Nieto hit .236 with two home runs and seven RBIs and was the primary catcher for former T-Bones ace Scott Carroll. Nieto was also part of history in 2014 when the White Sox used four Cuban players in the same lineup on multiple occasions. Nieto joined Jose Abreu, Alexei Ramirez and Dayan Viciedo in the lineup something that no other team had done in 45 years. He would return to the minors in 2015, playing in 81 games at AA Birmingham, hitting .207 for the Barons in the Southern League. Nieto would be released by Chicago after the 2015 season and ink with the Miami Marlins organization. He spent 37 games at AAA New Orleans and hit .195 with a homer and 19 RBIs in 2016. Nieto has also played parts of two seasons of winter ball, hitting in 2014-2015 and 2017-2018 with Gigantes in the Dominican Republic.
The Cincinnati Reds signed Nieto to a minor league deal on January 2nd, 2017 and released him following the 2017 season. In 2013 Nieto played for the Spanish National Team in the World Baseball Classic and was a teammate of former Cleburne and Joplin Manager Gabe Suarez. Throughout his career behind the plate, Nieto has thrown out 31% of runners attempting to steal (139 CS out of 445 SBA), and he is a career .244 hitter at the plate with 40 home runs and 248 RBIs in 625 games. Nieto closed out his high school career by leading his team the state championship, batting .372 with 16 doubles, five home runs and 38 RBIs.